This box was almost certainly made as part of a toilet service. Toilet services were used by both men and women as part of a public dressing ceremony known as the <i>levée</i>or <i>toilette</i>. The custom of the <i>levée</i>was started in the 17th century by Louis XIV. Adopted by the French upper classes, it continued as an important form of elite socialising through the 18th century. Toilet sets were key to the performance of wealth and fashion that was entailed in the ceremony of the <i>toilette</i>. Consisting of a series of boxes, dishes and a mirror, toilet services were expensive items made from luxury materials.
This box is decorated using a technique known as boulle marquetry, in which brass (and often pewter) motifs are inlaid into an expensive turtleshell ground. This technique was developed in the late 17th-century in the workshop of André-Charles Boulle (1642-1732), a cabinet-maker who worked for the French court and nobility. Boulle marquetry remained fashionable in France (and across Europe) through the 18th and 19th centuries.